Yesterday, the Broward County Sheriff's office arrested a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship waiter for engaging in lewd and lascivious conduct involving a minor, according to Local 10-ABC.

The case arises out of an incident on the M/S Veendam last Sunday when the HAL waiter, identified as Gede Sukrantara, age 26, convinced a 15-year-old girl to go into a bathroom on the 12th deck of the ship. He locked the door of the bathroom and the child is alleged to have then engaged in oral sex. She later reported the incident to the cruise ship staff.

According to the news station, Broward County Sheriff detectives interviewed Sukrantara, who is from Indonesia, yesterday after the child's father said that he wanted to prosecute the cruise employee.

The U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a 63-year-old woman from a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship approximately 60 miles east of Virginia Beach yesterday morning.

The HAL Rotterdam was sailing from Boston to Fort Lauderdale, Florida when it requested the Coast Guard to medically evacuation a passenger who was reportedly suffering from stroke-like symptoms.

At about 8:30 a.m. yesterday, a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter launched from the Coast Guard station in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The aircrew arrived at the cruise ship around 9 A.M and hoisted the ill woman and her husband to the helicopter.

The Coast Guard flew the woman and her husband to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

The Thomson Celebration suffered an engine failure as the cruise ship was leaving Grand Harbor in Valletta, Malta on Saturday, according to the Times of Malta.

The Maltese newspaper states that the cruise ship "drifted for around 100 metres before the captain was forced to drop anchor in order to avoid hitting the breakwater." This is a rather concerning scenario. I last saw the Thomson Celebration in Venice in May (photo above) while it was proceeding along the Canale della Giudecca. Without the assistance of tugs, power loss of this type could easily cause substantial damage to adjacent shore-side structures and/or the ship itself.

The Thomson Celebration reportedly blocked the Valletta harbor's entrance for about an hour, according to the newspaper (photo below). "Two tug boats helped secure the ship in order to stop it moving around with the currents." Assisted by tugs, the Thomson Celebration left the harbor once power was restored and sailed on its planned itinerary.

The Thomson Celebration is a 32 year-old ship built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in 1984 for Holland America Line (HAL) as the MS Noordam. The cruise ship is still owned by HAL, under long-term charter to the United Kingdom-based Thomson Cruises.

A couple on a cruise spent a little extra for the proverbial room-with-a-view only to find that HAL had a little surprise - it didn't tell them beforehand about a crew member using a grinding tool outside their cabin's window.

The YouTube caption says: "Thanks for telling us when you upcharged us $600 extra for the window guys."

There are over a thousand comments to the video on Nate Zemanek's YouTube page.

July 18 2016 Upgrade: Seems that the couple were on their honeymoon. According to UPROXX, when they complained, HAL didn't seem to care and told them that the maintenance work on the lifeboats would continue, from 9-5 daily, for the rest of the cruise. Later, after the issue went viral on Reddit and on YouTube, HAL refunded the $600 and gave them a free dinner.

KRBD reports that the alleged violation of the Alaskan air pollution law is widespread in the cruise industry. The community radio program interviewed a specialist at the Alaskan environmental program who identified other cruise lines who are accused of violating Alaskan law. In addition to NCL and Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Celebrity and Silverseas violated the emission standards according to the environmental specialist.

Alaska issued 18 notices of violation involving 48 instances of excessive air emissions since 2010, according to KRBD. Each violation of law carries a fine of approximately $37,500.

The cruise line are contesting the violations and are in negotiation with Alaska.

KHON 2 reports that two Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) crew members were injured and hospitalized yesterday in an accident on the Pride of America.

The accident occurred when the NCL cruise ship was docked in Hilo.

The crew members, in their 30s, were reportedly lowering a lifeboat from the cruise ship when the cables broke. The video below says that the men ended up falling into the lifeboat which fell into the water.

July 30 2015 Update: A crew member contacted us and said that "they were raising one of the rescue boats after doing some routine maintenance on the boat. it was not a life boat. As the boat was going up it somehow detached and fell from deck 6 to the water(4 deck fall)."

A cruise passenger has reportedly gone overboard from the Holland America Line (HAL) Statendam cruise ship in the last 24 hours.

When the Statendam arrived in Seattle this morning around 5:00 A.M. at the end of its 14 day Alaskan cruise, the passenger was not accounted for by the crew staff.

The cruise line notified the U.S. Coast Guard of the missing passenger shortly before 11:00 A.M., a delay of 5 hours after the cruise arrived in port.

HAL later released a prepared statement a 64-year-old man was aboard the cruise ship when it last sailed from Victoria on last night

The Coast Guard then tried to put together a search plan and notified mariners to be alert for a person in the water. The FBI and the Canadian Coast Guard were also notified.

The man apparently disappeared between 10:00 P.M. when the ship departed Victoria and 5:00 A.M. when it arrived in Seattle this morning.

The news accounts say that HAL reviewed surveillance video and determined their guest was seen on the footage when the cruise ship was near the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula. However neither the Coast Guard nor HAL would disclose what the video showed.

This means to me in all probability that there is no video of the man going overboard. If the video showed this, there is no doubt that a company like HAL would immediately disclose it to try and blame the passenger. My conclusion is that there is probably video of the passenger somewhere on the ship and the cruise line was able to correlate the time-stamp images when the passenger was last seen with the approximate location of the ship.

This case illustrates the sad state of affairs in the cruise industry with man overboards. A passenger disappears over a 7 hour period of time at sea and the cruise line has to look at surveillance video over the course of 6 hours when it reaches the next port before it can belatedly inform the Coast Guard to conduct a search? The legally required automatic man overboard systems would have immediately signaled the bridge of the ship and a search and rescue could be immediately conducted.

Millions of dollars are needlessly wasted as the Coast Guard goes on a wild goose chase and, more importantly, a life-saving search is delayed by the failure to comply with the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA).

According to Shiip Technology Market and Insight, "90% of cruise lines do not employ an MOB alarm system designed to sound on the bridge or at other centralized security station when it detects a person overboard." The publication quoted me on the issues saying:

"Video surveillance cameras, not connected to automatic man overboard systems, are useless to deal with people falling overboard. The cruise industry as a whole refuses to implement true life-saving devices including infrared, motion-detection, radar, and tracking technologies which are ready, reliable and long overdue."

"Most cruise line are resisting compliance with the CVSSA requirement for an automatic MOB, claiming that man overboard technology is not reliable. That's patently a false and misleading argument. The technology clearly exists but the cruise industry simply does not wish to spend the money necessary to save lives."

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary factual report finding, as anticipated, that visibility was limited when the excursion flightseeing plane operated by Promech crashed in Alaska.

The NTSB described that the pilot was operating under visual flight rules during “marginal visual meteorological conditions.”

Cruise ships losing power or propulsion have been a dime a dozen in recent years.

But two major cruise ships losing propulsion and being stranded in an U.S. port seems just a tad unusual. That seems to be the situation with the Holland America Line's Maasdam and the Celebrity Summit cruise ships this weekend.

The HAL Maasdam lost propulsion for in Boston Harbor on Saturday July 4th and got an extended view of the fireworks display, But the ship was still stuck in port as of Sunday morning with engineers working on the engines.

The Celebrity Summit petered out yesterday in New York with reports being that there was either an unspecified motor breaking down or there was some type of problem with the ship's Azipod propulsion system, according to the popular Cruise Hive publication.

There was a lot of discussion on social media about the incidents, but fortunately no fires or rough weather reported that could have turned these minor incidents into real trouble.

Cruise Critic is reporting that the Holland America Line (HAL) Ryndam cruise ship is a code red situation with a gastrointestinal virus sickening passengers sailing from the U.K.

The HAL cruise ship is returning to port in Harwich a day early, this Friday July 3rd, in order for the crew members to conduct what is called a "deep cleaning" before the next round of passengers arrive, according to Cruise Critic.

HAL says that a "high number of guests reported to the infirmary" during the current cruise. HAL has not disclosed the actual number of sick guests or crew members.

HAL thinks that norovirus is involved.

As is the case with virtually all cruise-related norovirus cases, there has been no disclosure of the cause of the viral outbreak (i.e., contaminated food or water, crew members working while ill, or - the cruise industry's favorite excuse, cruise passengers who don't wash their hands).

The Holland America Line (HAL) excursion staff on the Westerdam is in an uproar after Yahoo Travel published an article yesterday containing criticisms of its excursion policies and procedures. I was quoted in the article. I characterized HAL's policy of assessing a 100% penalty against cruise passengers who cancel a seaplane excursion more than 3 days before the cruise as dangerous and irresponsible.

An officer on the cruise line left comments here claiming he was "deeply offended," first, by my criticism of the reckless HAL policy and, secondly, because I didn't retract my comments and apologize to him personally. Other crew members and HAL fans howled in protest that criticisms were levied against the cruise line.

The arrogance of the cruise lines never ceases to amaze me.

Hurt feelings of an officer on a cruise ship is perhaps the last thing I am thinking of in a tragic case where 8 innocent passengers have lost their lives and their families are grieving enormously.

All victims deserve nothing less than an exhaustive investigation, detailed analysis and vigorous debate regarding what happened. But the cruise lines never (ever) release the results of their investigation voluntarily. After their PR department expresses condolences, the cruise lines' defense attorneys go to work defending the cruise lines and casting blame on others whenever they can.

The cruise lines prefer that no one discusses what most likely happened. They personally attack critics. HAL thrives on these tactics, as I have learned before.

But the unfortunate truth is that cruise lines are not proactive in making changes to their safety policies. Their guests and crew members have to be injured or killed before they do the right thing. The Costa Concordia had to happen before Carnival-owned Costa would stop its reckless policy of sailing dangerously close to the shore in what is called a "salute" or a "fly-by." 32 people had to die and thousands had to be terrorized before Carnival stopped this stunt.

The Carnival-owned Triumph had to be hauled across the Gulf of Mexico and CNN devote non-stop coverage to the disgusting spectacle before the cruise line would install splash guards to prevent fuel and oil lines from spraying over the engines and erupting in fire.

Dozens of cruise passengers from the Carnival-owned Fascinosa had to be gunned down when terrorists waited for them to exit from an excursion bus in Tunis before Carnival / Costa would begin to take the threat of terrorism seriously.

Carnival-owned HAL has a current policy of penalizing its guests if they try and cancel an air excursion during the cruise. A couple arriving in Ketchican near the end of a cruise, seeing that the skies were overcast and visibility was poor, are faced with a penalty of the cost of the excursion (hundreds of dollars) if they thought it looked unsafe to fly.

This greedy policy, combined with HAL's claim that it deferred to the air excursion company whether it was safe to fly in weather that even a child would feel is unsafe, placed the passengers in danger. Flying in Alaska is fraught with peril on the best appearing days, because it is by flight-vision-only in circumstances where the weather can change quickly and visibility can degrade without notice.

What were hesitant cruise passengers told? The fog will lift? Don't worry. The weather will improve? This is the "misty fjords" excursion to see "misty" fjords after all?

Will HAL be forced to scrap this risky policy? Will guests be permitted to cancel without penalty? Will the cruise line cancel the flights when the weather is potentially dangerous and forego the money? Will the cruise lines appoint an independent ombudsman to prohibit excursions from flying when prudence demands caution?

If any changes are made, it will be only because 8 passengers lost their lives and the cruise line has to deal with the PR debacle, not because the cruise line is being proactive and prudent.

June 30 2015 Update:Cruise Law News challenges Holland America ("All bush pilots and planes in Alaska are under more scrutiny now. And that's a good thing. It should lead to better safety. But to make things that much better, we hope cruise lines think about Cruise Law News recommendations.")

The Daily Mail identifies the names of the 8 cruise passengers and the pilot killed in the "flightseeing" excursion in Alaska. The HAL passengers were from California, Nevada, Oregon and Maryland.

The Alaska Dispatch News takes a look at this type of excursion and describes it as a "lucrative subset" of the cruise industry.

Yahoo Travel published an article today and discussed the dangers associated with flying in unregulated airspace in bad weather with limited visibility. I was interviewed for the article and I conveyed the thoughts of many residents and cruise passengers who have been on this type of excursion before:

Maritime lawyer Jim Walker points out that there is tremendous pressure exerted by the cruise lines and the excursion companies to fly, notwithstanding poor weather, in order to maximize profits. “I have heard many complaints from Alaskan residents and cruise passengers that excursion planes and helicopters routinely take off in poor weather with very limited visibility,” Walker told Yahoo Travel. “The cruise passengers cannot cancel if the weather is bad without a penalty.”

According to Walker, many excursion policies state that there is a 100 percent cancellation fee if a passenger cancels within three days of sailing. “It’s a tough choice — lose your excursion fee or risk your life,” says Walker. “This is an unreasonable and irresponsible policy. Profits over safety.”

Newspapers are reporting that 8 Holland America Line (HAL) cruise passengers were killed today when the sightseeing airplane they booked through HAL crashed near Ketchikan, Alaska.

The Seattle PI newspaper reports that the pilot of the charter plane and all eight cruise passengers died when the plane crashed about 20 miles northeast of Ketchikan. The aircraft reportedly hit the granite rock face of a southeast Alaska cliff.

The Alaska Dispatch News says that the passengers were from the HAL Westerdam cruise ship. They reportedly booked an excursion through the cruise line to go sightseeing on a turboprop de Havilland Otter "floatplane" operated by Promech Air, a charter service in Southeast Alaska.

The video below shows the weather conditions at the time of the crash.

You can see the video advertisements for the HAL "flightseeing" excursion sold by the cruise line here (June 26, 2015 update: HAL has deleted the web info for this particular excursion).

A lawsuit was filed against Holland America Line (HAL) in Seattle for the vicious attack unleashed by a HAL crew member on a young woman last year on HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam.

The crew member is identified as Ketut Pujayasa, age 28. from Indonesia. He worked a stateroom attendant. He used a master key card to gain illegal entry into the victim's cabin.

Pujayasa raped, beat, punched and strangled her and then tried to throw the woman from the balcony into the ocean in international waters.

The attack, lasting over 45 minutes, was absolutely horrific.

I'm surprised that HAL permitted this case to be filed.

Records show another passenger’s report of an overflowing toilet was tagged as a “high priority” by the ship’s front desk the night the woman was attacked, Calls from passengers concerned about the woman’s cries or help were deemed to be of a lower priority.

Permitting crew members (cabin attendants, room service attendants, etc,) a master key is a terrible idea. Rapes by such crew members have occurred in the past.

The CDC hasn't figured out whether the outbreak is due to norovirus. Unfortunately, given the short turn-around time in port for cruise ships and the agency's limited investigation, the CDC has never determined whether a GI outbreak on a cruise ship was due to contaminated food or water versus an ill crew member versus being brought aboard by a sick passenger and then spread through poor hygiene or inadequate cleaning.

This is the seventh GI outbreak this year which falls within the U.S. CDC parameters. Only ships with more than 3% of the passengers ill and calling on a U.S. port are listed. There were 9 outbreaks in all of 2014 versus 7 in just 4 months this year. The HAL cruise ship fleet is one of the more likely locations to contract norovirus if you are a cruiser.

Bernews reports that the Holland America Line (HAL) Ryndam cruise ship diverted to Bermuda in order to provide medical treatment for two passengers.

An 85 year old passenger suffered what is suspected to be a heart attack. A second passenger suffered a hand injury.

Earlier in the week three passengers from the Ryndam were medevaced to hospitals in Miami. One of the passengers suffered a leg injury, one sustained a head injury, and a third passenger may have suffered a heart attack.

Miami news stations are reporting that several passengers from the Holland American Line Ryndam were medevaced to hospitals in Miami this evening.

WSVN Channel 7 reports that one of the victims suffered a leg injury, one sustained a head injury, and a third passenger may have suffered a heart attack.

The news station says that the Ryndam cruise ship came within three miles from shore so Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue crews could pick up the injured and ill passengers. One passenger was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital and a second one to to Mercy Hospital.

Yesterday a cabin attendant discovered two cruise passengers dead in their cabin on the Holland America Line (HAL) Ryndam.

The proper procedure for the cruise line to follow is for the crew member(s) to immediately leave the cabin, lock the door and call security who, in turn, will secure the cabin and assign a security guard to safeguard the crime scene until the FBI team boards the ship.

The cause of death of the couple cannot possibly be determined until the FBI has conducted its forensic work, the bodies have been removed from the cruise ship, and a medical examiner has concluded a thorough examination of the bodies with the assistance of other forensic experts, pathologists and toxicologists. This is a time consuming process (we are still awaiting medical examiner reports from cruise deaths last summer).

There's no information regarding how, why or when the deaths occurred, but HAL quickly announced that the case "appears to be a murder-suicide." The cruise line didn't bother to wait for a medical examiner's report or for the experts at the FBI to perform their work.

So how can a cruise line make an instantaneous determination of the cause of two dead people in a cabin? It can't, certainly not without violating protocols and entering the cabin and conducting a quick amateurish attempt at acting like a crime scene investigator where it is likely to accomplish little other than spoliating the evidence.

HAL announced to reporters that it was an apparent "murder-suicide" strictly as part of its PR strategy. That's what it wanted the press to report. There are now literally hundreds of newspapers using this phrase in their reports of the cause of the cruise ship deaths. Many newspapers and news sources, including the Associated Press, have dropped the word "apparent" and said that the husband murdered his wife and then committed suicide based on HAL's rush to judgment.

Washington resident Amber Malkuch was 45 years old when she disappeared from the HAL Zaandam in 2009 while sailing to Alaska. But before the Alaskan State Troopers concluded their investigation, a member of HAL's PR department and CLIA's PR team, Sally Andrews, announced to the media that it appears that Amber took her own life. The "suicide" conclusion was reported on major news stations.

This surprised not only Amber’s friends and family, but it dumbfounded the Alaskan State Troopers who had yet to review photographs and video, conduct interviews or analyze toxicology reports. The Anchorage Daily News reported "Troopers Miffed at Cruise Line’s Rush to Judgment." The Seattle Post Intelligencer quoted a representative of the Alaskan State Troopers saying:

We’re the people actually looking into the exact cause of death . . . We’re the ones doing the interviews and looking at the evidence . . . And if we haven’t been able to make a determination, how can the cruise line who isn’t trained?"

Does Holland America Line care about what the evidence in death cases reveals? In the world of cruise line PR (perception vs. reality), what matters most to the cruise lines seems to be the public’s perception that cruise ships are safe rather than the reality that perhaps they are not.

Determining the cause of cruise ship deaths is the role of experts - the FBI, medical examiners, and other qualified forensic specialists - not the cruise lines' PR departments.

News sources are reporting that a couple was found dead today aboard a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship that docked in Puerto Rico.

The local police said that the man and woman were sailing on the Ryndam and were in their 50's and were from Cleveland, Ohio.

According to the news reports, no one is disclosing how, when or why the two people were killed.

A police officer said that blood was found in a cabin but it was unclear how the couple died. He said that "We don't know yet whether an object was used or what the motive was."

He said the ship's crew found the bodies when they checked on the couple after not seeing them for a while.

The FBI has taken over the investigation.

The Ryndam departed Tampa, Florida, on Sunday for a 2 week cruise in the Caribbean. The cruise ship ported in Key West on Monday and sailed at sea for 2 days before docking in San Juan today.

The AP story (based on the cruise line's PR department) speculates that the deaths may have involved a "murder-suicide' but there is no information released so far which supports that conclusion.

The FBI is handling the investigation at this point. The FBI generally does a terrible job investigating crimes on cruise ships. They often appear more interested in protecting the cruise lines' reputation.

A Holland America Line cruise ship came to the rescue, reports KCRA, after a pilot in a small, single-engine airplane on a 2,400 mile trip to Maui, Hawaii ran out of gas fuel over the Pacific Ocean and was forced to ditch his plane.

The news station says that the plane ran out of fuel about 250 miles northeast of Maui yesterday afternoon.

The U.S. Coast Guard launched an Hercules 130 aircraft and a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Oahu, and alerted the HAL Veendam to the scene.

The Veendam is expected to reach Lahaina, Maui today.

The Star Advertiser reported that the rescue took place amidst 9- to 12-foot seas and 25 to 28 mph winds.

The crime started with the room service attendant using his master key card to enter the passenger's cabin.

As reported by the Sun Sentinel, when the woman returned to her cabin for the next 30 to 60 minutes, the Holland America Line attendant Ketut Pujayasa beat and choked the woman. He tried to snap her neck, broke teeth in her face, knocked her out, choked her with a telephone cord, sexually abused her and tried to throw her off her balcony into the ocean.

The Sentinel wrote that the victim said crew member Pujayasa "spoke not one word" and was deathly calm "not frantic or fumbling" as he repeatedly assaulted her. She thought she was going to die, The newspaper reports that the victim suffers from "post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and cannot be left alone for more than a few minutes."

Federal guidelines suggest punishment of 14 years to 17.5 years in prison, but prosecutors requested U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez to jail Pujayasa for 30 years.

Yesterday, a reader of Cruise Law News sent me a message indicating that Holland America Line (HAL) is announcing that it is testing a man overboard system.

The reader was a recent cruise passenger aboard the HAL Nieuw Amsterdam during the first week of this month. He mentioned that the announcement was in the ship's "Today On Location" (daily program). Another reader sent a similar message to me after cruising on the Westerdam (photo below) last week.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have complained loudly and often about the refusal of the cruise industry to install automatic man overboard systems, as required by the 2010 Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act. The cruise industry collects over $45 billion dollars a year and pays no U.S. taxes. Plus, it's a personal issue with me, after representing clients whose loved ones (husband, daughter, son, brother . . . ) disappeared on the high seas under mysterious circumstances.

One of my clients, Laurie Dishman, was instrumental in seeing that the Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act was passed into law. Laurie traveled to Washington D.C. over 30 times at her own expense, together with other members of the International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization, to lobby Congress in support of the law. A photo of Laurie with President Obama as he signed the cruise safety bill into law is by my desk. It greets me everyday when I arrive at work, and reminds me why I am a lawyer.

HAL has more than its fair share of passengers and crew disappearing at sea with absolutely no video or explanation indicating why or how the person ended up in the sea. I have written about such tragedies here, here, here, here and here. There are other cases. Thermal maritime technology has been around for a long time. Is HAL really the first to apply it to man overboard situations?

Just last week a young Indian seaman, who just joined the HAL this month as a cook, disappeared from the Ryndam cruise ship. His body washed ashore on a beach in Clearwater, Florida two days ago. The spectacle of the young man's body being discovered with his HAL identification card in his pocket by an early morning beachcomber is a gruesome reminder that cruise lines must be forced to comply with the Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act.

Did the Ryndam have an automatic man overboard system that HAL is now touting to their passengers? It doesn't seem so. The ship doesn't even seem to have CCTV cameras which should have captured the young man's image as he was going overboard so that he could have been rescued.

I suppose that it's good news that HAL is announcing that it's finally testing an automatic man overboard system. At the same time, it's distressing to hear that the HAL's man overboard system is the "first ever" such system for a cruise ship. I have heard rumors that two other cruise lines may have man overboard systems, but I have seen no proof of that and there has never been any official announcement by any other cruise line.

There are hundreds of cruise ships operated by many dozens of cruise lines in the world. I suppose a cruise line that is the first to test a man overboard system should be proud of its accomplishment. But it's a sad indictment of the rest of the cruise lines which are competing to build the biggest and best cruise ships which still have no automatic man overboard systems as required by law.

Does anyone know whether the Ryndam's daily program mentions that it has a man overboard system? Does anyone have details about the new system?

This morning, the body of a crew member missing from the Holland America Line (HAL) Ryndam washed ashore in Pinellas County, Florida, a local news station in Clearwater reports.

The HAL crew member disappeared from the Ryndam near Egmont Key when the cruise ship was returning to port in Tampa on December 21, 2014. There is no public information which I have located explaining how the crew member went overboard.

The body was identified as Cliford B. Minej (a/k/a Menezes), a 27-year-old man from India.

Mr. Minej's body was found by a person walking on the beach who saw it and alerted the police.

The death reportedly has been ruled accidental by the medical examiner's office.

December 27, 2014 Update: Zee newspaper in India states that " . . . the captain of the ship didn't notify authorities of Minej's disappearance until late in the morning of the incident, the Coast Guard didn't know if he had gone overboard or disembarked at the cruise terminal."

The 2012 Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act requires cruise lines to install automatic man overboard systems so that the bridge will be immediately contacted when a person goes overboard. Unfortunately HAL has not bothered to comply with this law. There should never be a situation like this where a person disappears at sea without explanation.

December 28, 2014 Update: Times of India has additional information: "Clifford had joined the 'Ryndam' on December 6 as a cook and was to return to his Merbhat home in Agashi, Virar (West) in May next year."

The Sun Sentinel reports that the Broward County Sheriffs Office arrested a Holland American Line (HAL) crew member for grand theft after he was caught stealing than $10,000 on a HAL cruise ship.

The newspaper states that the sheriff's office charged Anthonius Novi Hartanto, age 42, from Indonesia with eleven counts of grand theft after he stole $10,220 aboard the HAL Noordam during cruises from Fort Lauderdale last month.

Crew member Hartanto would apparently would take the stolen cash to a location outside the port when the cruise ship would come into port. He would then reportedly wire the stolen money to his bank account in Indonesia.

The articles says that the crew member worked as an auditor and he apparently embezzled the money.

Holland America Line announced that it is cancelling the 7 night October 11th cruise of the Veendam from Quebec, Canada to Boston because of problems with one of the cruise ship's propellers.

HAL has already cancelled the sailings on the Veendam for the September 28th and October 4th cruises to try and fix the propeller.

The Veendam is going into dry-dock to complete the more extensive work necessary to effect the repairs. The company is not disclosing what exactly is wrong with the propeller except to refer to unspecified "technical problems."

"Repair work has been in progress to address a technical problem with one of the propellers on ms Veendam. As work has progressed alongside in Quebec, it has been determined that a complete repair can only be made in a dry-dock."

Passengers will receive a full refund and a cruise credit worth equal to the costs of the cruise.

The Coast Guard News reports that a Coast Guard MH-60 helicopter medevaced a 84 year old passenger from the Holland America Line cruise ship Oosterdam near Glacier Bay last week.

The helicopter flew from Sitka and hoisted the elderly passenger from the cruise ship and transferred her to Juneau.

The Oosterdam reported that the woman was possibly suffering from a stroke. The Coast Guard flight surgeon recommended that the woman be medevaced from he cruise ship.

We first heard of the incident from another passenger who emailed us today, saying:

"While sailing on the Oosterdam on 9/5/14 in Glacial Bay Alaska, we had a helicopter medical evacuation. The conditions were very poor, heavy fog. The Coast Guard out of Sitka, Alaska did a great job. The Coast Guard in Alaska, work in hazardous conditions, and deserve many thanks."

If you have a thought about this case, please leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

There is an interesting post on the message board at Cruise Critic, indicating that a fire broke out in the incinerator room of the HAL Noordam around 3 A.M. on August 25th.

The fire reportedly was extinguished it seems after a hour, more or less.

The cruise passenger indicated that the captain of the ship made several announcements and tried to keep everyone calm.

The passenger also said that he saw others walking/running wearing life jackets. Some people stayed in their cabin and other passengers went to the life boats. He and his family seemed scared and upset.

What struck me about the responses to his post is that a fair amount of people mocked him, accusing him of complaining about such a "minor" event, "just because you lost some sleep?"

What also struck me was that so many other passengers told stories that they too had experienced small fires or incinerator fires or electrical fires on other cruises.

The posters mentioned fires aboard the Carnival-owned Rotterdam, Westerdam, Volendam, and Zuiderdam. I wasn't aware of some of these fires.

One cruiser commented:

"We have been on three cruises in the past four years where there was a fire alarm. Twice it was in the incinerator room and the other time, an electrical short in the Lido. The last alert was I believe in May on the Zuiderdam, as we were woken up about 4 AM.

It has become a common occurrence for us on our Alaska sailings."

The majority of those commenting seemed rather blase' about the danger of fire at sea. They fluffed off the incident as another example of "ship happens."

I think that all passengers deserve a detailed explanation regarding the cause of the fire. The passengers are entitled to an explanation regarding the efforts taken to extinguish the fire together with a time table regarding the responsive steps and the announcements to the passengers and crew.

There is a tendency of the cruise industry not to disclose incidents like this. The cruise lines always claim that fires are "rare" but they never release evidence of incidents like this.

There should be a database available to the public detailing these type of incidents. No one should ever be made fun of for talking about such a potentially dangerous and deadly incident.

Today I ran across an interesting video prepared by a Holland American Line passenger following the boiler fire on the M/S Westerdam.

You may recall that the Westerdam caught fire on June 28, 2014 as it was sailing to Alaska. The automatic fire suppression did not extinguish the fire and the crew had to use hoses to extinguish the fire. The fire flared up again and the crew has to extinguish it a second time. The Coast Guard forced the cruise ship to turn around and return to Seattle. You can read about the incident here.

HAL CEO Stein Kruse came aboard the ship later that night and spoke to the passengers. He said that one reason he came aboard was "to get this completely straight."

He was very apologetic. He said that one port of the seven day "full Alaskan experience" would be lost. He promised that to make up for the fire and lost port, the passengers would receive a $250 credit to use on the ship. Plus, Kruse said that in order to make amends:

" . . . we will send you a note to give a 25% discount off a future Holland American Line cruise."

However, when a passenger later tried to a buy a cruise with the promised 25% discount, a HAL customer representative told the passenger that CEO Kruse had misspoke. The representative said that the 25% discount was good only for a cruise of a comparable price as the cruise in question on the Westerdam.

Of course, this is not what the cruise CEO said. Kruse was very deliberate, careful and precise with his words. "25% discount off a future Holland America Line cruise." There were no limitations, exclusions or caveats mentioned at all.

The customer representative wouldn't budge. She said that "our policy is that we don't protect verbal misquotes . . . that goes from all the way from our reservations department up to our CEO."

The guest representative also referred to a "speech," which Kruse allegedly read from, which according to the cruise representative "specifically states that the credit would be from the sailing of the Westerdam." But this is not what Kruse said.

In most circumstances, cruise passengers are at the mercy of the fine print and the legal mumbo-jumbo buried in the passenger ticket. But here a cruise CEO came aboard to "make amends" and to be "completely straight" with the passengers following a fire. The CEO made a promise, not a "verbal misquote."

There is a legal issue whether what CEO Kruse said is legally binding on this cruise line. I think it is. But some other lawyer can sue HAL and argue about that. But it's a real shame, from a public relations perspective, when the clear promises of a cruise executive are meaningless and can be easily disavowed by a low level reservations clerk.

Shortly after the Holland America Line (HAL)'s Westerdam caught on fire this weekend, HAL issued a press release characterizing the fire as "small" and "quickly" extinguished. It also said that it returned to port in Seattle "out of an abundance of caution."

Cruise line press statements like this rarely tell the whole story. We know that this fire was not immediately extinguished by the automatic suppression system on the ship and had to be fought by crew members with fire hoses, but the fire still re-ignited. The cruise line did not bother to explain why the fire ignited in the first place. Was it a ruptured fuel or oil line? If so, did the cruise ship have splash guards? Was it a mechanical failure of some type? Why wasn't the fire suppressed by the automatic systems? Why did it re-ignite?

Carnival Corporation, HAL's parent company and the owner of the cruise ship, stated last year that it invested hundreds of millions of dollars in safety improvements throughout its fleet of ship, primarily in the engine rooms. The announcement was a major public relations strategy after the bad press following the fires aboard the Triumph and other Carnival cruise ships. Did the Westerdam receive any of the much touted safety improvements?

There are many hundreds of newspaper articles mentioning the fire. But no one is asking these basic questions. Returning to port after a fire "out of an abundance of caution," seems like a gross understatement to me. Can you imagine a major airline battling a fire and then saying that it returned to the airport voluntarily, just to be on the safe side?

A fire at sea is one of the most dangerous experiences imaginable. But most cruise fans don't seem to be particularly bothered by these issues. HAL quickly announced a $250 per cabin credit to be used during the remainder of the cruise which is now continuing. The incident will soon find itself out of the news and forgotten.

King 5 News in Seattle reports that the Holland America Line (HAL) Westerdam caught fire this evening as it was sailing to Alaska and was forced to turn around and return to Seattle. The news station is saying that the fire broke out in the engine room.

"There has been a small fire in one of the boiler rooms onboard MS Westerdam as she sailed from Seattle earlier this evening which was quickly extinguished. All guests and crew are safe. Out of an abundance of caution and in coordination with the United States Coast Guard the ship has returned to Seattle. The ship is fully operational and there has been no impact on guest services. It is anticipated that the ship will depart again once the assessments are completed and continue her voyage to Alaska."

HAL's statement does not explain exactly what caused the fire and omits the fact that after the fire was put out, it flared up again. Descriptive phrases like a "small" fire which was "quickly" extinguished can be misleading many times.

The Westerdam is a 10 year old cruise ship and is owned by Carnival Corporation.

June 29th Update: The Seattle Times reports that the cruise ship has left Seattle to continue its cruise. It also provided a little bit more detail regarding the fire. Interesting, the automatic fire suppression did not extinguish the fire and the crew had to use hoses:

"The Westerdam left Seattle again around 10:15 a.m. Sunday, said Public Relations Vice President Sally Andrews.

Because of the delay, Holland America has revised the 7-day sailing schedule. Passengers will miss their visit to Sitka, but will be given a credit of $250 per room to use during the cruise.

Coast Guard petty officer George Degener told The Seattle Times the ship's crew knocked the fire down, but a while later it restarted.

A combination of high-pressure mist and crew members with hoses extinguished the fire, Kyle Moore, spokesman for the Seattle Fire Department, told the paper. The city dispatched a fireboat, and a few units to the Pier 91 cruise terminal, as a precaution."

Neither the cruise line nor the Coast Guard have explained why the fire broke out.

The Telegraph reports that Cruising Excursions, a company which operates tours exploring Roatan's "fishing villages, mangroves, iguana farms and beaches," announced that it is canceling its tours on the island.

An excursion company representative said that “a string of reports of robberies, violence against visitors and now this horrific murder have forced us to suspend our cruise excursion programme on this beautiful island. "

The newspaper further quoting the spokesperson saying that it is “very sad for the majority of law abiding island residents, especially those who make a living from tourism but we cannot recommend cruisers go ashore until we are reassured that measures are in place to protect visitors."

The excursion company also said that all bookings have been canceled with full refunds.

Roatan is in crisis mode trying to respond to the murder of a Filipino crew member from the Norwegian Pearl a week ago. We previously reported on the horrific crime.

The excursion company's withdrawal from Roatan is significant because it was based not only on the recent homicide but on what it describes as a string of violent robberies this year.

Roatan attended the Cruise Shipping Miami convention in Miami Beach last month to promote its port. I stopped and took a photo of the booth. I thought that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.

Passengers were stating that numerous people are sick with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and other noro virus like symptoms.

Some passengers complained that they became tired of the HAL captain blaming them for the outbreak.

The public relations people at HAL and parent company Carnival Corporation ignored our requests for information.

The Maasdam finally returned to Fort Lauderdale and the CDC boarded. The CDC is now reporting that 65 of 1096 passengers (5.93%) and 8 of 569 crew (1.41%) were ill with an unspecified gastrointestinal illness.

Several cruise passengers have informed us that there is a gastrointestinal outbreak on the Holland America Line (HAL) Maasdam which is currently sailing routes in South America.

Passengers are stating that numerous people are sick with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and other noro virus like symptoms. The number of sick passengers and crew has not been released to the people we have communicated with.

Today one passenger reported:

"MS Maasdam has been fighting NOROVIRUS pretty much most of the cruise from Rio to Ft Lauderdale. RED ALERT."

Another passenger reported that he is ill and is tired of being blamed by the ship's captain for the disease:

"I am on the sick Holland America Maasdam which has had Noro virus ever since the departing Rio and won't be scheduled to be back in Fort Lauderdale until the end of the month. I'm getting tired of hearing the Captain blame the passengers for the spread of the disease. As a physician, I've clearly noted that the disease is passed by vectors such as cruise cards, bar staff and wait staff never washing their hands, and the tables and chairs being cleaned with the same rag. Captain it's not the passengers its your staff."

The Maasdam is on a 26 day cruise, which started in Rio de Janeiro on March 2nd and will be ending in Fort Lauderdale on March 28th.

We reached out to HAL and parent company Carnival this morning about this reported outbreak but have not yet received a response. Neither HAL nor Carnival responded.

The CDC states that the Veendam cruise ship has returned after a a 14 day cruise from February 8-22, 2014 with 114 of 1273 (8.96%) passengers suffering from norovirus-like symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. 10 of 575 (1.74%) crew members are reportedly ill.

The CDC has not figured out the type or cause of the disease outbreak.

The CDC has confirmed four disease outbreaks on cruise ships so far this year.

Today CNN covered the story of the violent sexual attack by Holland America Line crew member Ketut Pujayasa on a 31 year old passenger aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam.

The 28 year old Indonesian crew member worked as a cabin attendant and used the master key card to gain access to the woman's cabin. He reportedly sexually assaulted, beat and choked the woman, and then tried to throw her overboard. Attacks against women in their cruise cabins have happened before.

Are sexual crimes committed by cabin attendants against women in their cruise ship cabins "shocking?"

If you define "shocking" as "disturbing" or "upsetting," of course.

But if you define "shocking" as "unforeseeable" or "unpredictable," not at all. Who's the most likely sexual predator on a cruise ship? A male cabin attendant. What's the most likely location of a sexual assault? A passenger's cabin. What's the most likely way that a cabin attendant gets into the passenger cabin? By using the master key card.

99% of cabin attendants are honest, law-abiding and hard-working men and women from around the world who are trying to support their families back home. But in our experience, the majority of sexual assaults on ships have been committed by male attendants who enter the passenger cabins and attack women and children.

Over four years ago, I wrote that "in our experience, the crew member most likely to harass or assault a passenger is a male cabin attendant in his late 20's or early 30's." I warned women to be on the outlook of a male cabin attendant who is "most likely to use his pass key and enter a woman's cabin at night."

After the vicious attack by HAL cabin attendant Ketut Pujayasa, age 28, against the passenger on the Nieuw Amsterdam, Holland America Line issued a PR statement stating that that it was shocked" by the crime. But the choice of the word "shock" is intended by the HAL lawyers and risk management department to suggest that the crime was unforeseeable and, as such, it can't be liable for the rape.

The word is also intended to convey to the public that things like this just don't happen on HAL cruises. Saying the crime is "rare" is the favorite cruise line defense. Better yet, the cruise lines say that sexual assault is so rare and unpredictable that it's just "shocking."

A couple of years ago, a young college student we represented was raped by a cabin attendant after the cruise ship sailed to Nassau. The cabin attendant who attacked her was in his late 20's. He entered the young girl's cabin when she was asleep by using his key card after hours.

The young woman's case was presented to our U.S. Congress. The Congressmen and Congresswomen were asked the rhetorical question why would a cruise line staff a woman's cabin with a male cabin attendant in his 20's? Why would a cruise line permit such a cabin attendant have a master key card that would permit him to enter a woman's cabin 24 hours a day? Why didn't the cruise assign women cabin attendants to clean women's cabins? Why didn't the cruise line deactivate the cabin attendant's key card after hours?

Simple steps like these were suggested long ago as a way for the cruise lines to avoid an entirely predictable crime like this. But instead of learning a lesson, the cruise lines engaged in its usual PR statements: "crime is rare" or "our employees are carefully vetted" or "the safety of our passengers is our highest priority" or other PR poppycock.

So what did the woman staying in her cabin on Nieuw Amsterdam have to contend with on Valentine's Day? A male cabin attendant in his late 20's, responsible for a woman's cabin, who had access to a master key card.

It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Little did the victim know.

When will the cruise lines take the key cards away from the male cabin attendants? When will the cruise lines warn their female guests that crimes like this have occurred over and over?

Do we really have to listen to cruise companies like HAL pretend that they are "shocked?"

The crew member is identified as Ketut Pujayasa, age 28. from Indonesia. He worked a stateroom attendant. He used a master key card to gain illegal entry into the victim's cabin.

The article describes that the crew member "appeared with no warning inside the passenger's darkened stateroom in the middle of the night, raped, beat, punched and strangled her and then tried to throw her from the balcony into the ocean in international waters somewhere off the coast of Roatan, Honduras."

The attack was horrific. The newspaper states that the crew member struck the woman several times including using a laptop computer and a curling iron, and that he "used a phone cord and curling iron cord to try to silence her screams and yells for help."

The attack "went back and forth from her bed to the stateroom balcony and back into the room."

The criminal charges against the HAL crew included an account of another passenger who saw the victim when she ran out of her cabin, dressed only in a tank top that was covered in blood:

"The passenger also noted that [the victim] had a curling iron wrapped and tangled around her neck and/or hair. He also described [her] as having black eyes and visible bruising around her neck and shoulders. [The woman], fearing death was imminent, asked the passenger to relay to her family how much she loved them."

The 31 year-old woman was flown by air ambulance to a hospital in South Florida because of her severe injuries.

The crew member was booked into the Broward County jail. He claims that the rape and assault were revenge because he felt slighted.

Our View: We have attended six Congressional hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate about crimes against passengers, There have been several hearings where other women have described the danger of permitting male cabin attendants to have access to master key cards for the passengers' cabins. There is no good reason to permit male cabin attendants to be responsible for cabins where there are single women or children. Their key cards must be deactivated after working hours.

"A 31-year-old female U.S. citizen on board ms Nieuw Amsterdam was assaulted by a crewmember in her cabin early this morning. The female guest was cared for in the ship's hospital and was in stable condition prior to disembarking the ship today in Roatan, Honduras, for air transfer back to the U.S. Holland America Line is providing full support to the woman. We are shocked and deeply saddened by this incident. The safety of our guests is our utmost priority.

The crewmember was placed under guard where he will remain until remanded to authorities. The FBI and other appropriate authorities were notified. A thorough investigation is in progress.

The ship is on a seven-day Western Caribbean cruise which departed on Feb. 9, sailing roundtrip Fort Lauderdale."

Cruise Critic says that the cruise was organized by "Bare Necessities" which is a nude cruise travel company.

We last wrote about "Bare Necessities" when the Royal Caribbean cruise line kicked off a disabled cruise passenger from its cruise ship during a Bare Necessities cruise.

We have attended six Congressional hearing where crimes against cruise passengers have been discussed. Cruise lines will suggest that such incidents are "rare" but sexual assaults occur more often than companies like HAL will admit.

The HAL cruise ship returns to port in South Florida tomorrow. Will the FBI arrest the crew member?

This weekend we received inquiries from passengers who had been on the Holland America Line Veendam cruise ship about a passenger who apparently went overboard. Passengers indicated that the incident apparently occurred off the coast of Mexico on January 3, 2014 as the ship sailed back to San Diego.

Here are two of the comments:

"Was on the MS Veendam (Holland America) 7-day Mexican Riviera cruise and a woman mysteriously fell or jumped off the top deck the early afternoon of day 6 (last Friday, Jan 3) off coast of Mexico (coming back to San Diego). She had to be dead (body floating face down in water), as we were sent to cabin for an hour. But no news was shared or online. Crew was working on top rail, which someone (the crew?) had disassembled even before the FBI showed up Sat morning to inspect before disembarkation. Do you have any info on this? Strange that there hasn't been any news. Rumors were suicide, but I'm really wondering."

"On MS Veendam (HAL) (Jan. 3, 2014) when we had a man overboard called. We were ordered to our cabins but never offered an expiation as what happened. Only rumors that it was murder, suicide or accident . . . How can we find out the truth?"

A member of Cruise Critic reports that a "small fire" broke out on Holland America Lines' Noordam cruise ship on Friday, October 26th.

JavaJunkie comments on the Cruise Critic member forum that while sailing on the Noordam, passengers had a bit of excitement two mornings ago:

"Shortly after 10:30am, one of the ship's alarms sounded, and I started to comment that they had forgotten to announce it was a drill. Just then the captain came on to tell us that we had just heard the fire alarm and it was NOT a drill. The fire team should report to the aft coffee machine, and all crew should stand by."

The cruise critic member writes that "there was a very heavy smell of electrical smoke" and the entrance to the Lido was blocked, requiring passengers to eat around the pool.

The incident occurred while the cruise ship was in port.

What was interesting was the casual story-telling style of the passenger's account which contained was no real explanation regarding the cause of the fire. There was more detail regarding the types of desserts served.

Of additional interest was that two other passengers reported incidents during other HAL cruises.

One passenger stated: "We had a fire on the Noordam also; on the way to Florence. 4 a.m. I smelled smoke and saw it from a vent. We called to report, grabbed our life jacket, put on some clothes and shoes and went up to our lifeboat. We were the only ones up there!! the fire (smoke) was in an a/c motor further down our hall. Our neighbors were slower to get out of their rooms and emergency crew sent them to a dining room. It was very weird being alone up there. Luckily we had a veranda door to help the smoke leave."

Another passenger recounted an incident on the Voleedam, at 1:10 AM on October 13th, when there was an announcement about "a possible fire in the engine room" with instructions for the fire crews to turn out, and passengers to stand by. Eventually the captain announced that "smoke from the incinerator leaked out, setting off the engine room alarms."

Our Federal Government may be in the middle of a shutdown, but the Coast Guard aircraft and helicopters are still flying to help cruise ship passengers in distress on the high seas.

The latest story comes from a newspaper in Hawaii, the Maui News, which reports that a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules airplane flew over a 1.000 miles to "drop six units of blood, a pack of platelets, and two transfusion kits via parachute to medical personnel aboard the Oosterdam."

The heroics were in response to requests for assistance by Holland America Line (HAL) which was dealing with an ailing elderly passenger who was suffering from internal bleeding. The situation was critical because the cruise ship was far out at sea, heading to Lahaina, Maui.

A CBS station in San Diego is reporting that the U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a 75-year-old man who suffered a heart attack while aboard a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship.

The Coast Guard received notification late last night that that a HAL passenger was experiencing a medical emergency aboard the Westerdamcruise ship. at the time, the cruise ship was 15 miles off of Mission Bay, California.

The Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter from San Diego and the patient and the ship's nurse were hoisted and taken to the hospital.

You can see the medevac operation in the video below courtesy of Coast Guard News.

A Canadian newspaper reports that a crew member aboard the Holland America Line Veendam cruise ship was jailed for possession of child pornography.

Sean Richard Bell, age 37, was arrested almost three months ago for possessing images and video of what are described as underage naked boys. He pleaded guilty today in a Halifax courtroom to the criminal charges,

Given time served, Bell will be imprisoned for an additional 69 days of his sentence. He was also given a one year probation order which requires him to take sex offender treatment. He has also been placed on the national sex offender registry for ten years and must provide a DNA sample to the Canadian data base.

HAL formerly employed Bell as a performer in Neptunes Trio on board the cruise ship.

Yesterday several readers of our Facebook Page sent an article from a Croatian website regarding an incident involving the New Amsterdam cruise ship operated by Holland America Line (HAL).

The article describes a scene where the HAL cruise ship allegedly came perilously close to a beach at Split, Croatia. By some accounts, the anchor may have become loose due to high winds. Others suggest that the cruise ship may have intentionally close to the public beach area.

A newspaper in Canada reports today that a 36-year-old cruise ship employee faces child pornography charges after police and Canadian border officials in Halifax found explicit files aboard the cruise ship where he works. Metro News Canada identified the crew member as Sean Richard Bell.

Halifax Regional Police state that Canada immigration authorities arrested the crew member following a routine search aboard the MS Veendam, a Holland America America (HAL) cruise ship, while it was docked in the Nova Scotia capital on Monday.

Officers from the Canada Border Service Agency discovered "explicit electronic files depicting child pornography" on various electronic equipment belonging to a crew member in his cabin.

The crew member is reported to be a musician / performer who was employed by HAL. The crew member faces charges of possessing, smuggling and importing child pornography.

This is hardly the first time a crew member has been arrested on child porn charges. The authorities in Halifax, Canada do an outstanding job of arresting crew members with child pornography, including the following cases. These cases involve just crew members arrested in Halifax:

Edward Brillantes Mangubat, age 40, worked for Cunard. He was arrested in Halifax when Canadian Border officer searched his laptop computer and found sexually explicit video featuring children. Mangubat worked as a stagehand on Cunard's cruise ship Queen Mary 2. He worked on cruise ships for seven years.

Nyoman Putra, age 26, is an Indonesian working as an assistant room steward on the Carnival Glory, allegedly had child pornography on a laptop computer. Canada Border Services Agency officers were inspecting crew members getting off the cruise ship when they nabbed the Carnival crew member at Pier 22 in Halifax.

Jay-Ar Ramos Trilles, age 23, of the Philippines pleaded guilty in Halifax provincial court to charges of possessing and importing child pornography. Canada Border Services Agency officer arrested an assistant waiter on the Costa Atlantica on Tuesday as he was getting off the cruise ship at Pier 22 in Halifax. Two sexually explicit videos of children were found on both a USB flash drive and a laptop computer. One of the videos depicted a boy and a girl between the ages of 10 and 12, while the other showed a six-year-old girl being sexually abused by a man. The prosecutor in Canada stated that the border agency is determined to keep such "abhorrent" material from being brought into the country. Trilles worked with Costa Cruises for three years.

Menandro Lim Lanzar, age 31, from the Philippines was arraigned in Halifax on a charge of importing child pornography. Mr. Lanzar was employed as a quarter master on the NCL cruise ship Norwegian Jewel.

Hendri Dharmawan, age 29, was working as a pastry chef on the Carnival Triumph when he was arrested in Halifax. The crew member was caught with pornography on his iPhone as he returned to the Carnival cruise ship. The border police then accompanied him back to his cabin where they discovered over two hours of child pornography on Dharmawan's laptop and external hard drive. The footage depicted girls as young as eight and boys as young as 10 being abused.

A Canadian news source, CBC News, reports that cruise passengers on a 31-day Holland America Line (HAL) cruise returning to Vancouver suffered from the ill effects of a norovirus outbreak.

The outbreak involved HAL's Volendam. The cruise line, which has experienced more gastrointestinal outbreaks than any other cruise line in the last decade, drained its pools and hot tubs and emptied its libraries to try and contain the spread of the norovirus outbreak.

HAL reported 28 guests and one crew member (2.37 % of the total 1,222 people on board) were sick over the course of the cruise. At three percent, Health Canada could launch a full investigation but will not because the reported cases did not reach this percentage.

One passenger told CBC that the problem appeared worse to those onboard than just the reported cases: "It had to be quite high, because it seemed like you would never sit at a table at dinner without someone having had it."

After a few hours of cleaning, the cruise ship sailed on a week-long cruise to Alaska at 5 p.m. on the same day it returned to Vancouver

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that sixty (60) of the 1237 passengers (4.85%) aboard the HAL Veendam cruise ship exhibited symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting during the last cruise.

Ten (10) of the 574 crew members (1.74%) also reported ill with gastrointestinal illness.

Over the last decade HAL's cruise ships have experienced the most gastrointestinal illnesses and the Veendam has the third most outbreaks of the hundreds of cruise ships operating out of the U.S. The only other cruise ships with a worse records are the Ryndam and the Amsterdam, both HAL ships. Read about the problem here.

Tonight local ABC Channel 6 news station aired a special program Missing at Sea regarding the disappearance of cruise passenger Jason Rappe' from the Eurodam cruise ship operated by Holland America Line (HAL).

Mr. Rappe' went overboard last November after participating in a "Pub Crawl" on the HAL cruise ship where the cruise line plied the passengers with alcohol at various locations.

You can see some video of Jason on the deck after the cruise sponsored drinking event. Curiously, there has been no clear video released of Jason going overboard.

Although the Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act requires cruise lines like HAL to install systems to signal when cruise passengers and crew members who go overboard so that the cruise ship can promptly respond, HAL had no such systems in violation of the new cruise safety law.

Cruise lines are also responsible when they over-serve passengers alcohol.

The FBI and Coast Guard are suppose to disclose to the public on an online database when crimes occur or when passengers go overboard but the database does not even mention Mr. Rappe.'

Two U.S. Coast Guard air crews from San Diego and Sacramento worked together to medevac a sick cruise ship passenger who was in need of emergency medical attention.

According to NBC-7 San Diego, the Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship, Zaandam, was sailing approximately 200 miles southwest of San Diego when a 71-year-old passenger began experiencing what is described as a serious internal medical condition.

The HAL cruise ship was en route from Hawaii to Ensenada, Mexico. When the passenger became ill, the ship changed course to sail nearer to San Diego.

A MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew took off from San Diego to meet the ship. A C-130 Hercules airplane crew from Sacramento provided support during the rescue.

The top video shows the helicopter crew hoisting the ailing passenger from the cruise ship.

The article explains that Jason's brother. Eric, says that the family "still don’t know what happened to Jason, and the company refuses to give them any information . . . “They don’t care. They just don’t care. All they want is for it to go away.”

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office in Florida still lists Jason as a missing person.

My blog Cruise Law News (CLN) is one of the few places where you can read about all of the problems the cruise lines don't want you to know about. Like sexual assault of women, molestation of children, pollution of the water and air, and cruise line cover-ups of disappearances on the high seas.

CLN has a wide, loyal and growing readership. It's the ninth most popular law blog in the U.S. This month alone, my articles have been quoted on CNN and Fox News and cited in articles or documentaries by ABC's 20/20, the American Bar Association Journal, Associated Press, CNBC, Daily Mail, Miami Herald, Newsday, Reuters, Seattle Times, Sun Sentinel, Canadian television stations and the largest radio networks in Montreal, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Vancouver and Miami.

But I also received the usual hate mail from people who like the cruise industry status quo exactly the way it is. Over the three and one-half years CLN has been on line, I have received more than my fair share of hateful emails and insulting comments left on my voice mail at work.

Winston Churchill said this: "You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

The most abusive comments usually come from people who work for the cruise lines. I'm not talking about crew members, but corporate types ashore in the cruise line corporate headquarters. These people try and stay anonymous. I call them cruise cowards. I keep a folder with the most hateful comments to read one day when I retire. Some of the hate mail consists of boring one or two line rants. Minor trash talking, very disappointing. I could do much better.

"And you are surely the happiest of all, uncle Jim. Like a maggot on road kill. You've got this gravy train leaching blood out of successful and responsible businesses under a phony bullshit cover. Behind that smiling cardboard cutout is a weasel scanning for the next meal. You are a helluva good example for kids thinking about a law career, buddy. You'd be a good prototype for a cartoon character that distills into one face the essence of what people hate about people in your profession. Take the low road to sucess (sic), find an easy prey, start sucking and don't let go. That's the Jim Walker way."

But the author of this comment obviously has some deep personal animosity that existed long before the latest Carnival cruise ship caught fire. I wondered who and where the person was. So I took a look.

When someone leaves a comment on this blog, I have software that permits me to track the internet provider (IP) address. I can't see who reads the blog, but I can find out information if someone leaves a comment because the comment section tracks the IP addresses of those people who leave comments.

So I tracked the IP address. It tracked directly to Holland America Line (HAL) in Seattle Washington. I emailed the person back and said thanks. I would post an article that the hate mail was the best I had seen. The next email I sent resulted in a response coming back that there was no such email. Looks like the HAL cruise coward de-activated the email address and is probably hiding under a desk at HAL's headquarters in Seattle.

This is how the cruise lines work. HAL is not the only cruise line to send anonymous hate mail, unknowingly leave a IP address in the process, and then scamper down a hole when confronted. I have caught Carnival and Royal Caribbean doing it as well.

So why the hard feelings from the Carnival-owned-HAL?

I have only one matter right now with HAL. I represent the family of a man who disappeared from the Eurodam. I wrote HAL a standard letter and asked for a copy of the video camera images, a copy of the reports to the FBI, Sheriff's office and flag state, and a list of witnesses with information. This is the very basic information we request in all passenger overboard cases to help families try and find out what happened to their loved ones who disappear at sea.

But HAL decided to stonewall our request. It provided us with nothing but threats and insults. HAL stated that it would not even consider cooperating unless the widow first agreed to state whether her missing husband had life insurance. HAL demanded that the widow agreed to provide HAL's lawyers with her husband's employment information, all confidential medical records, and any psychological records.

Cruise lines like HAL are all smiley faces when they sell you a cruise. But if your loved one disappears on the high seas, the cruise lines will stab you in the back to conceal the truth. And if you hire a lawyer, they may send anonymous hate mail from their corporate headquarters.

Courthouse News Service reports on a case involving a crew member from Canada who was employed aboard a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship.

The Canadian crew member, employed on the Oosterdam cruise ship as a dancer, suffered a serious career-ending injury, but is being denied the right to take his case before a jury.

Courthouse News states that the case involves Anthony Yuzwa who was a talented dancer. He graduated from the Canadian College of Performing Arts, worked for the Burlington School of Dance, and appeared on Canadian television. While performing on the Oosterdam earlier this year, a stage lift collapsed and crushed Yuzwa's right foot, resulting in the amputation of two of his toes and parts of others.

He filed suit against HAL as well as a company which hired him to work aboard the cruise ship. Under the General Maritime Law of the U.S. and the Jones Act which was enacted in 1920, injured crew members - even if they are not U.S. citizens - are permitted to bring their legal disputes before U.S. juries and seek a wide range of remedies against their maritime employers and the owner and operator of the vessel. The cruise lines, however, have increasingly been inserting terms in the employment contracts requiring crew members to submit their claims to "arbitration."

Arbitration is a procedure which strips crew members of their right to trial by jury. Cruise lines prefer arbitration because they believe that compensation awarded to injured crew members will be substantially less and the chances of defeating the crew member will be substantially greater. Arbitration also limits the ability of crew members to engage in discovery of the cruise line's wrongdoing.

The defendants in Yuzwa"s lawsuit responded by moving to dismiss his law suit, which you can read here, and compel him to arbitrate his case in Canada without a jury. HAL subsequently stipulated that the arbitration could take place in Los Angeles with U.S. law applying but without a jury.

The U.S. federal judge agreed with HAL's argument and compelled Yuzwa to attend arbitration rather than a jury trial. You can read the judge's decision here.

Injured crew members should anticipate that most cruise lines will respond to lawsuits by arguing that the cases should be decided through arbitration.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 10% of the passengers aboard Holland America Line's Amsterdam cruise ship were sickened by a disease on the ship. It is not yet known whether the disease was norovirus or due to some other causative agent.

The Amsterdam was in port in San Diego yesterday after a long cruise starting in Sydney Australia on November 11 and arriving in San Diego on December 5, 2012. 81 of 791 passengers became ill. This turns out to be 10.24% of all passengers (assuming all passengers reported their illness and the cruise line accurately reported the outbreak to the CDC). This is an extremely high percentage of affected passengers.

The cruise line's PR department down-played the outbreak saying "a number of guests reported to the infirmary with a common type of gastrointestinal illness." The popular cruise site Cruise Critic (owned by Expedia travel company) shrugged the illness off as due to a "stomach bug" and repeated HAL's advice to passengers for "extra hand washing."

As usual, there is no discussion regarding the most likely cause of the outbreak. Cruise lines like HAL like to blame the passengers and suggest that they brought the virus aboard and it was then spread because other passengers didn't wash their hands. If this is viral based, due to norovirus, or due to e-coli infection, the real culprit is probably contaminated food or water.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whereas "person to person" transmission of norovirus has been documented, "norwalk gastroenteritis is transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated water and foods." The FDA indicates that contaminated water is one of the most likely causes of norovirus. The FDA reports that "water is the most common source of outbreaks and may include water from municipal supplies, well, recreational lakes, swimming pools, and water stored aboard cruise ships."

Most of the affected passengers reportedly became symptomatic after the cruise ship left its last port of call (Hilo, Hawaii) on November 29th. Are we to believe that suddenly 10% of the passengers suddenly stopped washing their hands? Or is it more likely that contaminated food or water introduced at the last port of call were the culprit?

The Friends of the Environment (FOE) has an interesting article that the problem is not sick passengers affecting the cruise ship, but sick ships affecting the passengers. FOE tracked the top 12 cruise ships with the most gastrointestinal outbreaks from 2000 to the present, based on the CDC data.

Out of the top 12 sickest ships, HAL operates 5 of them and has the top three sickest ships. HAL's Amsterdam is number 2. The Ryndam is number 1. The Veendam, which recently flunked a CDC health inspection (you can read about the filthy ship here and here), is number 3. The other HAL cruise ships which made the top 12 sickest list are the Volendam (no. 9) and the Zaandam (No. 11).

Today, our firm was retained to help the family of missing HAL cruise passenger Jason Rappe' find answers to what happened during the evening of November 28th and the early morning hours of November 29th aboard the Holland America Line Eurodam cruise ship.

On November 24th, 41 year old Jason Rappe' and his wife, Tine, left Fort Lauderdale on a 7 day Caribbean cruise aboard the Eurodam.

Jason is believed to have gone overboard on November 29th as the cruise ship was sailing from St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) to the Bahamas, somewhere north-west of Puerto Rico. The U.S. Coast Guard eventually was notified but the search was called off after approximately 36 hours. You can read our article here which we published on the day of Jason's disappearance.

Jason and his wife were married 17 years ago and live in Olympia Washington. Jason works as a carpenter and is a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Jason served in the U.S. Army and is a veteran, and was honorably discharged as a sergeant.

Jason's wife, brothers and father released a statement which is repeated below. The family is seeking any information which may explain how and when Jason apparently went overboard. Please help. If you were on the cruise, please contact us.

Contact: Jim Walker: telephone - 305 995 5300 or 1 800 526 1518.

Please note that the comment section below is closed, and no further comments will be published. If you were on the cruise and have information, please contact us directly.

On behalf of the Rappe’ family, we would like to extend our gratitude to all of you who have shown so much love and support for us during this time of crisis. We are all still trying to come to grips with this awful event of losing Jason at sea.

For those of you who are not familiar with what happened, Jason and his wife, Tine, from Olympia Washington, went on a 7 day cruise aboard the Holland America Line Eurodam out of Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean. On November 29, 2012, Jason apparently went overboard and has not been located.

We pray that somehow Jason is out there, and that he is ok. There are not many people on this planet with the grit and toughness that Jason has demonstrated in his life. Between Jason’s training in the U.S. Army and his stubborn, never-fail attitude, we know that if anyone can survive this it is him.

Jason is the type of person who could easily be imagined making a rope from his goatee, and lassoing a pair of sea turtles on which he would triumphantly stand as they lead him back to safety.

Our family is seeking information regarding what happened during the cruise. If you were on the cruise ship, we would to like obtain any information that you may have regarding Jason and the circumstances surrounding him going overboard. A maritime attorney is helping us investigate what happened, and we ask that you contact him with your information. His name is Jim Walker and his contact information is below.

Jason’s wife and father will not be conducting any interviews at this time, and we ask that you respect their privacy.

Thank you again for your support and prayers as we deal with this horrible family event.

Multiple news sources are reporting that a passenger has gone overboard in the Caribbean earlier this morning. The passenger, age 41, is from Washington and was traveling with his wife.

The passenger's wife reportedly discovered her husband missing from the Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship Eurodam. The U.S. Coast Guard said that, according to HAL, a baseball cap was located on one of the decks that was allegedly confirmed by the wife of the missing passenger as belonging to him. The ship was sailing from St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) to the Bahamas when the man disappeared early today.

The Coast Guard issued a statement that it was conducting a search after being notified of the incident at 5:00 AM. Two Coast Guard ships and a helicopter have been dispatched to search for the passenger, whose name has not been released.

HAL issued a statement that the cruise ship turned around at some point and has joined the search for the missing passenger. The ship left Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday for a seven-day cruise.

The overboard from the Zaandam revealed a lack of credibility by HAL's PR department.

Cruise line expert Professor Ross Klein has documented 197 over-boards from cruise ships since the year 2000.

HAL has had 5 passengers overboard from its cruise ships in just the last couple of years. All remain mysteries.

As best as I can tell, there has never been a determination regarding the cause of any of the HAL over-boards and there has never been a case where HAL admitted that it had closed circuit television (CCTV) images of what happened.

It's disturbing that people can somehow just disappear on the high seas with no explanation and no video of what happened. You'd think that the cruise line would revamp its security systems when not one single overboard has been solved in the last three years. It also raises the issue whether HAL is being transparent with the public.

November 30, 2012 Update: The missing passenger has been identified in the press as Jason Gregory Rappe. HAL issued a statement to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel newspaper, which you can read here.The statement is silent regarding when the wife reported her husband missing to the cruise line and when the cruise line notified the Coast Guard. In recent overboard cases, the cruise lines have delayed as long as several hours before notifying the Coast Guard.

December 1, 2012 Update: The Eurodam returns to Fort Lauderdale this morning and the FBI should be boarding the cruise ship. At the same time, over two thousand passengers will disembark and begin to head home.

American passenger Sarah Tessier Powell set sail on the Holland America Line Veendam cruise ship the last week of September.

Two weeks later, no one has any idea where she is.

CBC News in Nova Scotia Canada reports that Ms. Powell, age 70, from Louisiana, was last seen September 30th on the Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship Veendam, as it sailed from Quebec City to Charlottetown.

The HAL cruise ship's next stops were scheduled in Charlottetown, Sydney, and Halifax on October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respectively

Halifax police speculate that Ms. Powell "may have walked off the ship without being checked by the cruise ship security," as CBC reports. Let's hope that's the case. Assuming that's true, the Canadian police admit that it's not clear where Ms. Powell may have disembarked.

How on earth is that possible? Passenger gangways are supposed to be heavily monitored by security with each passenger's sea pass card scanned and the gangways always covered by closed circuit television cameras.

Cruise ships can easily trace the passenger's onboard purchases and use of their cabins by "lock-link" reports which document the opening of cabin doors. When did the passenger last use her card to either charge a purchase or open her cabin door? The shipboard security should easily be able to know when there was any documented activity by Ms. Powell on the ship.

And why do the police think she left the ship? If she did, then there should be CCTV film documenting her exit even if the gangway security guards were asleep at the wheel.

There are a number of news outlets covering the story. That's good news. Passengers should not disappear during cruises, with loved ones wondering whether the passenger went overboard or is wandering around somewhere ashore.

It's been ten days since anyone say this cruise line guest. Where is she?

Flies. Dirty and malfunctioning ice machines, refrigerators & dishwashers. More flies. Dust, dirt, food residue, and debris. Flies and more flies. Flies where food is prepared. Flies where food is stored. Ugh. These unsanitary problems are part of a ridiculously long list that the U.S. Centers for Disease documented during a surprise inspection last month aboard the Holland America Line's Veendam cruise ship.

The inside word is that most "surprise" inspections are not surprises at all. Most of the time the cruise lines are tipped off and immense pressure is suddenly applied on the crew to bring the ship up to standards. But here, at least, there was no advance warning. And this is what you get.

Cruise List broke a story today about a power outage which occurred on Holland America Line's Statendam cruise ship last Thursday.

The Cruise List blog explains that last Thursday evening his proprietary application which searches for cruise information on Twitter picked up a tweet about a “fuel pump explosion” that caused a “two hour Power Outage on the Statendam.” He re-tweeted it but later deleted it when he received a direct message from the person originally tweeting the information, begging him to delete it for reasons not explained (he sounds a lot nicer than me).

Cruise List then left a post on Cruise Critic asking if anyone knew about an incident on the Statendam. Yes, several passengers responded - the cruise ship indeed "lost all power and were serving cheese sandwiches in the main dining room."

This incident seems to have passed without much consequence other than the inconvenience of cheese sandwiches. But the Statendam is almost two decades old - it is one of the older ships in the modern cruise line industry.

As the last couple of years have demonstrated, power failures on cruise ship are a very serious matter. Engine room fires and explosions which disable cruise ships, for a few hours or to the point that the ship is disabled at sea, are hardly rare. Consider these incidents in the last three years:

The most famous recent power failure occurred aboard the Carnival Splendor. The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier had to send helicopters to drop relief food to the cruise ship and a fleet of tug boats had to push and pull the Splendor to San Diego for extensive repairs.

The cruise industry tries to keep explosions and power outages quiet, to avoid images like the Carnival Splendor cruise ship (right) stranded at sea or videos like this.

The Statendam captain's blog mentions nothing about the power outage. I'm sure that that's not a reflection of him as much as a corporate policy prohibiting any mention of something like this.

It's important for the cruise community to keep an eye out for potential safety issues that the cruise lines would prefer you not know.

Hats off to Cruise List, which states that it "was created as a place where you could go to see what was going on aboard ships without a sales pitch."

CBC News in Canada published a story this week about cruise passenger Bernie Hamilton, age 66, who died following a Holland America Line ("HAL") cruise due to what sounds like a series of errors by the ship's medical personnel. The article is entitled "Cruise Death Prompts Warning on Ships' Medical Care."

I have heard these stories time after time over the years. A couple excited about a dream vacation. The husband experiences medical issues during the cruise which a competent doctor ashore would easily handle. But due to blunders by the cruise ship medical team, the wife returns home alone to face the cruise line's denials of responsibility for the suffering and death.

In Bernie Hamilton's case, you can read about the ship doctor's misdiagnosis by concluding that Mr. Hamilton had just a common cold or perhaps asthma which led to a prescription of Ventolin which accelerates a patient's heart rate. You can read that after Mr. Hamilton collapsed on the floor of the cabin, his wife Heather had to witness the spectacle of the medical personnel trying to decipher the instructions for the automatic defibrillator as precious minutes ticked away on her husband's life.

After the ship medical team struggled to insert an intravenous line and intubation tube and finally "stabilized" Mr. Hamilton, the ship put Mr. Hamilton ashore in Spain where the shore-side doctors declared him brain dead.

Ms. Hamilton received no apologies from HAL. The cruise line is quoted in the article saying that they "believe the care provided to Mr. Hamilton was appropriate." All that Ms. Hamilton received from HAL was a bill for $2,000.

Last year, I wrote an article "If the Ship Doctor Kills You, Too Bad" which explains the dangers provided by the limited nature of cruise ship medical care and the difficulty seeking compensation when malpractice of the ship doctor or nurses harms your family.

Yes, doctors and nurses make mistakes, but a cruise ship is about the only place where a doctor can negligently kill your loved one and there is no accountability.

As I mentioned last year, as long as cruise lines are not liable for bad medical care, there is no financial incentive for the ships to invest in training and hiring more qualified and experienced doctors and nurses.

There is no economic or moral justification for such an inequitable situation. The cruise industry collects over $35 billion dollars a year and pays no Federal income taxes by registering their cruise ships in foreign countries. As long as travel agents, cruise fans and the public are indifferent to these type of stories, in the future other families will experience the horror of dream vacations going terribly wrong.

November 11, 2014 Update: Breaking News! Cruise passengers are now permitted to sue the cruise lines for medical negligence. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that cruise lines are no longer permitted to assert an "immunity defense" when their ship doctors and nurses commit medical malpractice. Read: 11th Circuit Rejects Cruise Lines' Immunity Defense to Medical Malpractice Claims. Contact us for further information.

One of the purposes of this blog is to educate the public of dangers of cruising and the legal hurdles passengers face when things go wrong during a cruise.

One of the first issues I felt compelled to write about when I started this blog over two years ago was the Death On The High Seas Act ("DOHSA"). DOSHA does not permit cruise passengers to recover pain, suffering, grief, or bereavement if a loved one dies outside of the territorial waters of the U.S. DOSHA provides only limited financial damages, such as lost wages.

Cruise lines love DOSHA. It eliminates all consequences of their negligence and provides no incentive to act responsibly. The cruise industry spends millions of dollars lobbying Congress to make certain that DOSHA is not amended to provide reasonable compensation to grieving families.

This weekend, I received the following comments from a Mom who lost her daughter during a Holland American Line cruise, while on HAL's "private island" Half Moon Cay.

Holland America Line's "Family Cruise" - Half Moon Cay

"My 3 year-old daughter was killed on Christmas Eve of last year while on a Holland America cruise with her biological father. She drowned in the designated children's swim area of a private island in the Bahamas owned by HAL. This tragedy occurred in plain view of hundreds of people present and right near where a lifeguard SHOULD have been actively on duty.

I would never have considered allowing her on the cruise if I believed for a moment that I was putting her in harm's way.

Imagine what it feels like to receive a phone call on Christmas Day and fully expecting to hear a relative calling with a Christmas greeting. Instead, you are informed, with no preamble or warning, that your darling daughter is dead.

Holland America has made it perfectly clear to us that they feel they have no responsibility in the matter, and even if they did have any liability, that their interests are fully protected by the Death on the High Seas Act. Never mind the fact that the children's swim area contained many bright toys to lure children into the water, and deliberately lulls the guests into a false sense of security with signs nearby that say "Paradise -- you'll want to stay forever" (or similar.) Because the DOHSA does not cover pain and suffering (only loss of a paycheck, and let's face it, my daughter didn't have a steady job), they have informed me that I am entitled to absolutely nothing.

Thanks, Holland America. And a Merry Christmas to you as well.

Be aware of this stance before you go on one of Holland America's "Family Cruises" (one of their employees told me their target market is families for their Christmas Cruises). Holland America is only too happy to take full advantage of their supposed protection under a law that they themselves have so much as admitted as being archaic. For some terribly naive reason, I actually had hoped that instead of hiding behind the cover of an inappropriate law to protect themselves from their failures to provide a safe environment for my child, that they would actually be moved to simply do the right thing. Silly me.

The DOHSA Act was originally passed in 1920 to cover scenarios of a fisherman (read: breadwinner) lost at sea. The intent of the law was certainly never to cover the loss of a child on a cruise, but the cruise industry is taking full advantage of its existence and has opposed efforts to change this law.

The lesson that Holland America has taught me with their brush-off treatment of my complaint is loud and clear: pain and suffering are worthless. I can't even bring myself to contemplate what their message communicates with regards to their perceived value of the life of my daughter."

Were you on the cruise or at Half Moon Cay at the time of this incident?

Should DOHSA be amended to provide the same remedies as land based law?

At this moment the U.S. Coast Guard is in the process of medevacing three elderly passengers from a cruise ship 100 miles east of from Hilo, Hawaii.

The Republic reports that an 86 year old man appears to having a heart attack, an 82 year old man has symptoms of internal bleeding, and a 76 year old woman is suffering from abdominal pains.

The helicopter deployed two helicopters and a plane to the Holland America Line cruise ship, the Oosterdam. The cruise ship is headed for San Diego. The Coast Guard intends to take the ill passengers to Hilo Medical Center.

A cruise ship in the middle of the ocean is not where you want to be if you are gravely ill.

The newspaper reports that a Coast Guard flight surgeon made the decision to medically evacuate the elderly passengers after hearing about their conditions from the ship's medical staff.

We have covered lots of cruise ship medevac stories, but none involving three separate passengers in need of emergency medical evacuation.

If you are on the cruise ship and have information or photographs or video of the medevac, please leave us a comment below.

The Seattle Times reports that the husband of a cruise passenger filed a wrongful death suit Holland America Line in Seattle after his wife was killed during a cruise sponsored snorkeling excursion.

The incident occurred when passenger Diana Mechling had just entered the water from the excursion boat off the coast of Belize to start snorkeling. The operator put the vessel in reverse, and the propeller struck Ms. Mechling. According to the newspaper, her husband, Michael Mechling, was present on the snorkeling vessel during the incident. Ms. Mechling died in a local hospital.

We reported on this tragedy last February shortly after the incident occurred. You can read the account here.

A local newspaper in Belize, 7 News Belize, reported in February that Port Authority Belize concluded its investigation into matter and found that the Captain of the boat Reef Rocket, Martine Manuel Pariente was negligent. The Port Authority has decided to charge the cruise operator with negligently causing loss of life, and has suspended his captain's license.

The passenger's family can now expect the Belize excursion company to deny that it is subject to jurisdiction in the United States, as it has done in other cases where cruise passengers are injured during cruise excursions.

CBC News Canada is reporting that a 75 year-old passenger from the Holland America Line MS Maasdam was reported missing by his wife shortly after 8 AM. yesterday after the HAL cruise ship docked in Charlottetown, Canada.

The Maasdam left from Montreal on Saturday on a seven-day cruise,

The newspaper states that the vessel's crew conducted a shipwide search but could not locate the passenger on the cruise ship. The Canadian Coast Guard searched the cruise ship's route but could not locate the man.

According to the newspaper, a lobster fisherman found a body around 8:30 AM. in the Northumberland Strait near western Prince Edward Island.

The cruise line confirmed that the body was that of a passenger from the cruise ship, although the Canadian police have not yet confirmed that the body was the missing passenger. An autopsy has been requested.

If you have information about this latest cruise overboard, please leave a message below.

October 5, 2011 Update:

The CBC News identifies the deceased passenger as William Cureton, age 75, of Port Dover, Ontario.

The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a press release indicating that it is investigating an allision between Holland America Lines' cruise ship Westerdam and ice in the vicinity of Yakutat Bay today.

The Westerdam was reportedly maneuvering through ice near Hubbard Glacier Tuesday evening when it sustained damage approximately 15 feet below the cruise ship's waterline. The Coast Guard press release reports that the vessel's hull was not breached. Fortunately, there is no report of pollution and the passengers and crew are okay.

The Westerdam continued on with its cruise to Sitka, where the cruise ship was met by Coast Guard representatives.

This morning, HAL issued a statement claiming that the "winds were high at the time," and stressing that "the hull was not breached, and the ship continued on its published itinerary as planned."

HAL also says that the Westerdam will sail on its next cruise as scheduled.

7 New Belize reports that a cruise passenger died yesterday while snorkeling in Belize's waters. American tourist, Diana Mechling, age 59, was reportedly snorkeling at Goff's Caye in Belize when she was struck by the propeller of a catamaran.

The newspaper in Belize indicates that Ms. Mechling was treated at Belize Medical Associates where she died. According to a representative of Holland America's agent in Belize, Cruise Solutions, the passenger was on a snorkel excursion tour when she was injured.

Ms. Mechling was in Belize on Holland America Line's Ryndam cruise ship. Cruise lines like HAL are legally responsible for investigating the excursion companies with which they do business and making certain that the tour companies have adequate safety rules and regulations for the protection of the cruise passengers.

The newspaper states: "apart from being a terrible personal tragedy for Mrs. Mechling's family, It is a huge black eye for an already suffering cruise industry - and major fallout is expected."

7 News Belize reports that the Port Authority Belize "has concluded its investigation into matter and found that the Captain of the boat Reef Rocket, Martine Manuel Pariente was negligent.

According to a release from the authority, around 1:30 pm last Wednesday, Mechling was in a group of tourists that was getting off the Reef Rocket when she got entangled in one of the boat's propellers and received a large cut wound to the lower pelvic and thigh area.

We note that this differs from the police account which last week said that she somehow ended up snorkeling under the vessel.

But based on its finding The Port Authority has decided to charge 55 year old Pariente with negligently causing loss of life, and has suspended his captain's license. The Reef Rocket has been prohibited from sailing pending further inquiries."

A 29 year old crew member died during a botched life boat training exercise in New Zealand today.

According to newspapers in New Zealand, the accident occurred when crew members from Holland America Line's Volendam cruise ship were practicing life boats drills. One of the wires attaching the lifeboat to the cruise ship snapped, throwing the two HAL crew members into the water in Lyttelton Harbor. One of the crew members was rescued, but the other man who was wearing heavy clothing and boots went under water and did not reappear. The crew members were reportedly not wearing a life jacket.

HAL has not released the name of the deceased crew member.

January 9, 2011 Update:

We received a comment (below) from the Medical Officer on the HAL cruise ship, expressing his/her condolences. We appreciate hearing from cruise line like this. It shows compassion. This is the first time in 500 blog articles that a cruise line has posted a comment on our blog following a crew member death or injury.

A newspaper in New Zealand has a follow up article on the crew member death - "Liner Crew Traumatized by Shipmate's Drowning" - indicating that the cruise ship's 600 crew members were "obviously traumatised by the whole thing . . . they all know each other pretty well, so they are quite upset."

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